Could NB become an energy warehouse?

Last fall, Rubenius purchased 346 acres (140 hectares) at the Silicon Border development near Mexicali in Baja California, Mexico, for the installation of a large utility-scale energy storage operation. Rubenius calls it “the world’s first mega region energy warehouse,” aka Energy Warehouse No. 1, and plans to roll out similar complexes in other emerging economies around the world. Ultimately Rubenius plans to install 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt) of sodium sulfur (NaS) energy storage batteries at a fully commissioned cost of over US$4 billion.

“The reason Rubenius chose this location is the U.S. grid is under expansion in the area, and at the Mexican border, the [Mexican] grid crosses our property into the U.S. and connects to the U.S. grid,” says Daniel Hill, CEO of the 4,000-acre (1,620-hectare) Silicon Border technology park. “So from that location you have a lot of potential customers in California and even Arizona. And of course you’re connected to the Mexican grid, which has large switches across the street from us.”

The storage space in Mexico will be offered to energy companies and utilities in both countries, and ostensibly will make deployment of wind energy and solar energy more viable.

One of the things you rarely see talked about is that NB’s wind energy is ‘take or pay’ meaning that NB Power must purchase it whether it needs it or not so in the middle of the summer when NB Power has no need for wind energy it has to buy it and in the deepest part of a cold winter – when it really needs the energy – the turbines may not be turning. This inefficiency is not considered when talking about the cost per kWh.

I don’t know enough about this stuff but given the push around here for wind energy and given the size of the New England market and the upgrades to the energy corridor, maybe a large scale energy storage facility could be an option.